The Malaysian Insight

IT has been more than two weeks since nine-year-old Kamiliah Anab went missing but her mother still has hope.

Kamiliah, fondly known as Ayeng among her family and friends, went foraging for rattan in the forest with her grandparents, aunts and uncles, but did not return with them.

The girl, of the Jahai tribe in the Selaor Orang Asli village in the Temenggor Forest Reserve in Perak, went missing on January 13.

Rescue workers and villagers who mounted a search have found to trace of her.

“It has been more than two weeks, but I am convinced she is still alive. It is just a matter of time before we find her,” her mother Kasima Anab told The Malaysian Insight.

Recalling the morning of January 13, Kasima said she didn’t want Ayeng to follow the group into the jungle that day.

“I didn’t want her to go to the jungle to forage that day, but she insisted and threw a tantrum,” Kasima said.

“She is very close to her grandmother and she wanted to follow, so I relented.”

Ayeng, who is hard of hearing and has a mental disability, does have a tendency to wander off on her own, but the villagers always keep a close eye on her knowing her tendencies.

“There were several times when we went fishing, she strayed away and I had to shout at her to come back.

“I always keep a close eye on her because I know she tends to wander off.

“Now I don’t know what happened, even if she died, there is no body. I can’t sleep or eat thinking about what happened.

“I just hope we can find her soon,” the housewife said.

The track to the entrance of the jungle is a steep climb at the foot of the village and takes a three-hour hike to get to the top.

Once there, the Orang Asli track goes further in to look for rattan which they sell to make a living.

Ayeng’s grandfather, Ateng, 70, said she was walking in the middle of the group so that they could keep an eye on her, and yet, something untoward ended up happening.

“I was walking behind her while her grandmother was walking in front. Before hiking down to the village, we stopped to tie all the rattan we foraged and she was near a huge log, but we could still see her.

“Once we were ready to head back down, we realised that she was missing. We assumed that she had returned first but when we checked with her mother, we realised that she was not home.

“Tthe villagers immediately mobilised and looked for her.”

At 7.30pm, all the adults in the village went trekking into the jungle with torch lights to look for her but to no avail.

The next day, they lodged a police report for help.

No sign of girl

Search and rescue (SAR) teams from the police, Fire Services Department, Orang Asli police tracker unit Senoi Praaq, World Wildlife Foundation (WWF) and Department of Orang Asli Affairs (Jakoa) looked for her for six days from January 14 to January 19, but they did not find any signs of her.

Gerik police chief Superintendent Zulkifli Mahmoud said the search was made more difficult due to the dense forest.

“We had to hack through the thick foliage to look for her. To make it more difficult, there were no tracks due to the dry weather.

“Even the search dogs couldn’t locate her scent anywhere,” he said.

For the six days, a team of 70 to 80 members looked for her from 8am to 6pm daily.

Ayeng was last seen wearing a yellow top and orange pants. Her bag pack that contained the identity card of a family member who went foraging with her, is also missing. They also couldn’t find a green lunch box that her mother had packed for her.

“There are also a lot of wild animals such as tigers, elephants and sun bears in the jungle which made the search difficult,” Zulkifli said, adding that the search party canvased an area of six kilometer square foot.

After six days and no sign of Ayeng, the SAR was called off.

Selejib, 50, Ayeng’s uncle said he was unhappy about how the SAR was conducted.

“All they did was walk around. We thought they would use technology to look for her but there was nothing,” he said.

Selejib, who lives in a nearby village, has been travelling to Selaor daily to help the villagers search for his niece.

He is also unhappy that they have stopped looking for the girl.

When asked if he thinks Ayeng is still alive, he said there is nothing pointing to the contrary.

“Is she was eaten by an animal, there will be signs. There will be blood or body parts. In this case she just disappeared without a trace.”

Zulkefli, meanwhile, denied that the SAR stopped.

“We didn’t stop looking for her, we called it off temporarily because there are no new clues that can help in the SAR.

“If we get new information about her whereabouts, we will go back into the jungle and look for her.”

This, however, pales in comparison to the SAR for missing French-Irish teenager Nora Anne Quoirin who went missing at a resort in Negeri Sembilan while on holiday with her family in 2019.

Authorities searched for her for 10 days before locating her body.

All there is left now is a team of volunteers from non-governmental organisation, Panthera, conducting a grid search along with a rotating team of villagers.

Thy started a search on January 20, but that too has yielded no 8esults. – January 27, 2022.